ABSTRACT
Scottish artist Graham Fagen planted 17 trees in inconspicuous locations within the renewal area. With his project 'Tree Planting' he wanted to engender in local residents a more positive attitude towards their immediate surroundings. This chapter examines how the people of the area dealt with this artistic intervention and how they made use of 'Tree Planting' in their everyday practices. To understand how people in Glasgow's East End made use of Fagen's project in their everyday practices, the chapter draws on Michel de Certeau's conceptualisation of everyday practices as forms of 'use, or consumption'. Methodologically, the reconstruction of everyday practices in 'Tree Planting' is based an archival data analysis, as well as on narrative interviews with Graham Fagen conducted as part of a research project titled 'Rebuilding the Living City' that the author carried out at the University of Glasgow. 'Tree Planting' by Graham Fagen developed as part of a larger scheme of urban renewal, the so-called Royston Road Project.
